Buy Used

$9.79

Used: Acceptable | Details

Sold by OldDominionBooks

Fulfilled by Amazon

Condition: Used: Acceptable

Comment: Pages are nice and crisp. Free from highlighting. Binding is tight. Wear to the dust jacket including rips on the front and back.

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

48 used & new from $0.01

See All Buying Options

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 2 images

The Face of Battle Hardcover – 1986

by John Keegan (Author)

127 customer reviews

See all 31 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Amazon Price New from Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$12.06

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

—

$14.94

$0.01

Paperback

"Please retry"

$11.88

$5.66

$0.01

Audible, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$19.95

or Free with Audible 30-day free trial

MP3 CD, Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$29.95

$41.96

Unknown Binding

"Please retry"

—

$43.87

$7.00

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Alexander Rose

27

Hardcover
$15.57
John Keegan

47

Paperback
$12.35
John Keegan

108

Paperback
$11.85
John Keegan

47

Hardcover
John Keegan

38

Hardcover
John Keegan

108

Hardcover

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Product Details

Hardcover: 355 pages
Publisher: Dorset Press; Reprint edition (1986)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0880290838
ISBN-13: 978-0880290838
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (127 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #225,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #54 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Military Technology
- #60 in Books > History > Military > Napoleonic Wars
- #417 in Books > History > Military > Strategy

Would you like to update product info, give feedback on images, or tell us about a lower price?

Customer Reviews

127

4.5 out of 5 stars

5 star		63%
4 star		26%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

See all 127 customer reviews

Share your thoughts with other customers

Write a customer review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Fascinating account of men in battle

By Bryan Byrd on September 19, 2012

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

In THE FACE OF BATTLE, author John Keegan, in his role as historian and not soldier, attempts to dissect the experience of battle as the common soldier knows it. The trouble with most accounts, he explains at length in his opening chapters, is that historians tend to focus on the win/lose aspects of the battle, or else how its outcome has affected the course of human events, or else been enamored with its pageantry and its place in the popular imagination. As an educator of young cadets who would someday be British officers, he found these methods inadequate; and, it would seem, motivated by his own lack of experience IN battle while teaching ABOUT battle, he sought to reach a different level of discourse about the process.

Along with his lengthy opening concerning how battles are traditionally recorded, he also seeks to define what he means specifically by the word 'battle'. Rather than the generic descriptor, he is referring to particular events, possible within a larger framework of warfare, in which the set conditions are fairly narrowly confined. Instead of re-defining Professor Keegan's description, I think the 'battles' that he chooses to focus on are indicative themselves of the term as he uses it: Agincourt, Waterloo, and The Somme.

Once these preliminary discussions are out of the way, Professor Keegan begins his disection of the three battles mentioned, and I doubt I have ever read a more fascinating account of warfare. While the general course of the contest is first described, what follows is an examination of what an individual may have experienced, reasonable suppositions as to why they men may have behaved as they did, and a breakdown of the different weaponry systems as they were deployed against one another.Read more ›

4 Comments Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

Let's face it. You do not want to miss this book.

By bernie HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER on January 15, 2015

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

John Keegan could give Barbara Tuchman a run for her money. In this excellently written speculation on three major battles (A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme.)

The first part of the book was a mixed message. I can understand that as a writer John Keegan had to explain that he has not been in a battle to quell detractors. However he may have overdone it a bit. Mixed with his apology is an excellent overview of what a battle is. I made it to the Tet Offensive 1968. He could have been next to me from his descriptions of battle. I did see some differences in attitude between West Point and Sandhurst. I would have been satisfied if the first chapter was the book.

Then he goes on to dissect three grate battles. I only knew of the battles through Shakespeare and other tellers of tales; so it was nice to get the skinny on what it was really most likely to be. You do not have to be in a battle to feel you were there but it helps.

This is one of those books that need to be re-read as there are too many details and you will have to pause and think about what you just read.

This book was very well worth the time to read it.

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Fine Book, But Wrong-Headed

By Andrew M. Klein on March 2, 2015

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

Long-winded, but well written and conceived. Too much moralizing and wrong-headed about the "officer class," face to face combat, and modern soldiers, however. Dead wrong, as it were. He comes to the wrong conclusions. See WWII bombings and USA war efforts since. If his views predominated, which they did not when he wrote it and do not today, millions more would have died and we'd all be slaves now. (Really want to give it 3 1/2, but can't.)

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful

Rivetingly Accurate Look At Nature Of Combat Experience

By Barron Laycock HALL OF FAME on October 20, 2000

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

One of the most wonderful aspects of John Keegan's impeccable writing style is that it is always used in service to the telling the story at hand, in this case a quite unique and fascinating look at the literal face of battle itself, that is, at the nature of the experience of combat from the soldier's perspective. Of course, since most of his other tomes he argues masterfully about the integrating elements of warfare regarding specific campaigns and battles in a specific conflict such as World War Two or the First World War (see my reviews), here he focuses brilliantly on the nature of organized violence itself, and how it is perceived and witnessed by the men who are so engaged. In a very real sense, he has reversed the usual logic about conducting war from the overall perspective and strategies of the generals and admirals overseeing the engagement of forces to focus instead on the horrific and mind-boggling perspective of the soldier on the ground, the "cipher" so often taken for granted and ignored in historical treatments. For this reason alone any serious student of military history should enthusiastically devour this book.
Yet, of course, as we devotees of Keegan's works have come to expect and admire, there is much more of value in this thin but provocative volume. Keegan memorably details and describes the horror, pain, and confusion of the battlefield, and redefines the nature of our understanding of what it means to be a soldier, from the nature of a soldier's fears to the physical and emotional assault on his person, covering everything from wounds to trauma to shell shock. He accurately and articulately describes the operation of everything from field hospitals to makeshift prisoner of war camps, and the atrocious realities involved in experiencing either.Read more ›

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

See all 127 customer reviews (newest first)

Write a customer review

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Three Stars

Great detail, obvious in-depth knowledge of the subject, but not well written and hard to read. Sorry, Mr. Keegan.

Published 4 days ago by Edmond T. Atherton

Five Stars

War is not Pomp and Circumstance - General Sherman correctly called it.

Published 4 days ago by DrG.

Keegan's Classic

This is what Diderot meant when he said, "Divertir pour instruire". Keegan's classic takes the reader to the battlefield and puts him in the shoes of the participants and... Read more

Published 3 months ago by MM Cooper

A great read!

As an army officer, this descriptive narrative provided the ability to place me in the emotional footsteps of significant battle participants and shaped my appreciation of the... Read more

Published 3 months ago by FishBowlStacks

Fascinating Battle Minutiae

This book covers 3 major historic battles, from all angles you could imagine, revealing a myriad of fascinating details I had never heard despite years of tv war documentaries. Read more

Published 3 months ago by NHBunion

Informative

A study of three eras of battle. Some pages reach toward long windedness, but many, many times it turns into insightful, deep, dramatic prose to pull all the thoughts together. Read more

Published 5 months ago by M Burke

A richly detailed but muddled read. Diving into this ...

A richly detailed but muddled read. Diving into this book offers the occasional insight and unique perspective, but there is no rhythm or clear direction. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Eric Winkler

Three Stars

Published 8 months ago by steve haroldson

Five Stars

POSSIBLY ONE OF THE GREATEST BOOK ON LEADERSHIP YOU WILL EVER READ

Published 9 months ago by Martin Kellard

Worth reading i

I feel like I am at the battles. His detail and insight offer many unique perspectives on some of the most important battles. Also it is short

Published 9 months ago by Brett K.